In a surprise twist this afternoon, Sony has updated investors with revised estimates ahead of its official earnings report scheduled for Thursday. The company now expects to post a net loss of 260 billion yen (£1.98b), a far cry from its net profit forecast of 70 billion yen (£531m) for 2010 to 2011. Now, for the first time, we can put a price tag on the PSN outage which compromised millions of our identities.

The number is £106m. That’s the price Sony has placed on the damages it suffered as a result of the PlayStation Network intrusion. In a statement this afternoon to investors the company said, “Based on information currently available to Sony, our current known costs associated with the unauthorised network access are estimated to be approximately 14 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012.”

While £106m is a sizable figure, this is only part of the picture. Think of all the credit card companies which will need to re-issue new cards in light of the attack. That’s potentially 77 million credit or bank cards, a cost we’ll likely passed on to consumers in higher interest rates and/or surcharges. Factor in future losses associated with identity theft and today’s news is only the tip of the iceberg.

Was £106m more or less than you expected Sony to suffer from its PSN outage? Sound off.